


Firewood

by kateyes224



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Pure unadulterated autumn fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 15:24:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12656217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateyes224/pseuds/kateyes224
Summary: Some autumn fluff, written for @leiascully's Octoberficfest challenge. Apologies that I'm just getting around to adding this to my AO3 when it's been posted on Tumblr for a year.





	Firewood

When she wakes, she’s cocooned deep inside their dark blue duvet, burrowed into pillows that smell like them. Autumn sunlight is filtering meekly in through the windows, and she hears a distant THWACK echo outside every few seconds. That must be why she’s woken up. She yawns, glancing at the bedside clock and marveling that she’s managed to sleep in past 7 a.m.

THWACK.

She throws her bare legs out from under the covers and snags his thick terry-cloth robe from the foot of the bed, pulling some slippersocks onto her small feet. She pads softly down the creaky stairs to find coffee already made, an empty mug on the counter for her, and his used one resting in the sink. She throws a close-lipped smile at the cream for no reason other than that she still can’t quite believe they’re here. Like this. Making coffee for one another and washing each other’s dishes. The simple domesticity of it still manages to astonish her.

The mercury had dipped earlier than usual this year, and though they were still leaving the windows open at night to keep the house cool during the day, she’d remarked just last night that it might be starting to get cold enough for a fire in the fireplace.

THWACK.

She stirs cream into her coffee, wraps her hands around the cup, and blows the steam away as she wanders out to the porch, the screen door slamming shut behind her. The Navajo blanket is folded at the end of the porch swing, so she bundles up with it, knees drawn up, and settles in to watch him.

He’d let his beard grow back after they’d returned from their island getaway, though it wasn’t nearly as long or as wild as it had been before the Monica Bannan case. This was just a few weeks’ worth of growth, and it suits him, she decides. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans that were frayed at the knees and cuffs, a white ribbed cotton tank top, and the new gray flannel she’d picked up for him the last time she was at Costco. 

“Flannel, Scully? Really?” he’d whined, wrinkling his nose. “I knew you had a thing for lumberjacks.”

“It’s practical, Mulder,” she’d argued. “Especially for this time of year. I swear to God, though, if you take down a tree and release any of those glowing green bugs on our property, I’m leaving you.”

THWACK.

Country isolation suited him. Like the prisoner he had been before his exoneration, he’d spent whatever free time he’d had away from his little den of paranormal iniquity doing manual labor on the property, running its circumference in endless circuits, mending fences, and rebuilding the ramshackle barn next to the pond. Eventually, he’d jerry-rigged his own rowing machine, tying a small boat off with nylon ropes he’d secured to two willows, one on either end of the pond, so that he could row endlessly against their steadfast pull.

His body had always been a thing of beauty. Lithe, long muscles, a slim waist, tapered shoulders. A swimmer’s body. But now…now he was powerful. Hard where he’d once been firm. Rippling where he’d been sinewy. 

She’d have been intimidated if she didn’t know she already owned him, body and soul. 

THWACK.

The wood splits apart, thick pieces falling on either side of the stump with twin thuds. He stoops down and gathers them, throwing them onto the woodpile before balancing another hunk of a felled oak on the stump. He steadies it with both hands, then reaches behind himself to wrap one calloused fist around the maul’s long handle and secures the other hand just under its head. 

She watches as he raises the maul, bending his knees and lifting up on his booted toes to throw his weight into the downward swing, allowing the hand under the maul head to slide down its length and meet the hand holding the butt of the handle. A satisfying and delayed THWACK echoes over to her a second later, and he is already bending to retrieve the split wood pieces and toss them onto the growing pile. Just then, he pauses to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and glances up to see her curled up on the swing, and he smiles at her.

She blinks back at him and sips her coffee, lifting an eyebrow in wordless invitation.

He drops the maul and ambles over to her from across the yard, scattering the two or three hens that are pecking around in the dirt. 

He vaults the porch stairs in two bounds, and throws himself down onto the swing next to her, jolting her, and she scolds him halfheartedly when her coffee sloshes onto his robe.

He leans over and plants his lips firmly onto hers, and she makes appreciative noises in the back of her throat when he deepens the kiss. 

“You taste salty,” she says against his mouth.

“Chop your own wood and it’ll warm you twice,” he murmurs.

She hums and pulls away, biting back a juvenile retort about what she’d like to do to his wood, and she sees a playful light dance in his eyes when she realizes that he has heard her say it anyway.

They know each other too well.

She leans down, precariously dangling from the swing for a moment to set her mug on the wooden slats of the porch before she turns back to him and throws a leg over his lap to straddle him, pulling the blanket with her to wrap them in its warmth. She drapes her arms around his muscled shoulders and nuzzles into the salt-and-pepper scruff on his cheek. He tightens his arms around her waist and captures her lips again with his own.

She lives for moments like this. 

The darkness can’t possibly find them when they’re busy building fires.


End file.
